thatlauralass

No problem! And yeah, Willow charcoal is one of my favourites. But it has it's own problem - you could do a lovely piece of shading but if you lean on it with your hand by accident, it ALL sticks to your skin and gets removed. ;A; So you have to use fixative a lot if you're in the habit of leaning on your work like I am, haha.

Ooh, Bibii, you have some really lovely stuff there! ^_^ You should definitely keep at it and upload more stuff!

And ah yeah, possibly you mixed it up with charcoal. Willow charcoal is easy to remove but compressed charcoal can be a total nightmare. ;n;

Hi there Pookies! Thanks for the welcome! :D And thank you very much! It would be super appreciated!

Oils are honestly super messy by nature, haha. I don't know anyone who doesn't get in a mess when they're painting with the stuff. :laughingsmiley: Like I said above though, baby oil is the trick! I guess oils are just a medium you need to persevere with. :) They're so so flexible they're definitely one of my favourite things to work with. Unlike watercolours there's no rules or limit to how much you can put on, or how dark/light you can make things. They're definitely fun to play around with!

Thank you both! :) I absolutely adore making more realistic pieces like the cat eyes, butterflies, feathers and the dog, although my course at the moment is demanding some more… abstract stuff. Once I graduate I'll have all the time in the world to make more artwork like that, though! ^_^ I can't wait to see if I'll get any commissions too! That might be a while away yet, though.

Aw thank you tinti, although the truth is I draw absolutely every day. I think that's the trick, really! If you're passionate about something and keep at it long enough, you really can do almost anything. That's awesome though! I'm not such a good writer, but I definitely enjoy roleplaying and writing up short passages about my pets! Have you done much neopets based writing?

On that note, I think this year I'm going to participate in NaNoWriMo too, since I graduate in July/August so I'm sure I'll have the time to take part. :) Exciting!

Thanks so much for the tip! I'll have to try that. Mostly I used my fingers for blending, even though I have tortillians that I could have used. It gets kinda messy, though.

No problem! ^_^ Oh here's a tip; if you're using your fingers to blend, a good way to keep your fingers clean is to use baby oil (like Johnsons baby oil, it's dead cheap) on a cloth or kitchen roll/paper towel/etcetera - because it's not water based, it'll remove any oil pastel or oil paint easily and it's good for your skin.

Oh, well I have a ton of work uploaded here on my tumblr (providing it's ok to post this link; I hope it is!): http://lauraclarkart.tumblr.com

And well most regular pencils are actually made of graphite, haha. :laughingsmiley: Unless you mean a different kind? But yeah; graphite's really easy to erase providing you use a good plastic or putty eraser.

And ooh, do you have any uploaded work? I'd love to see it!

Thank you, Bibii! ^_^ Hmm I'm sorry if this answer ends up being a bit of a paragraph, haha! My university course is a Fine Art one, so I do a lot of drawings there from life or similar (in various media such as graphite, charcoal, conte, and ballpoint); which then end up being translated into oil paintings.

Also as a hobby in my free time (unfortunately I'm not getting a lot of that at the moment), I play with digital art too, mostly for fan art of different websites and my own characters and such.

I'm quite versatile at different mediums; although at the moment I'm really big on oil painting. My favourite medium is definitely old school graphite pencils, though! :)

Haha, I'd love 1,000,000 np, but the sad thing is I know for a fact it'd be SO so easy to spend it all in a day! I think I'd start by collecting all the treasure maps, and then I'd get a couple of paintbrushes to colour my dream pets.

I think the remainder then would go towards petpets, or a petpetpet - and then if I had any left after that, I'd spend it all on books for my active.

Best of luck!! :) I have my fingers crossed for you.

The trick with oil pastels is to work quite large, or to sharpen the pastels into a point to get in the finer details. You already seem to be getting really good at blending! ^_^

Hi there everyone! c:

I've been playing Neo on and off since I was 13 I think it was. My name's Laura (as you might have guessed!). I'm in my final year at university, and I'm a huge drawing/ painting/ gaming/ crafts enthusiast.

I like to think I'm quite friendly, but I'm quite shy in person, haha. ^^

I was quite active a couple of years ago on another account, but since I've been away for so long I've made a new main account, and with it a new neopet - my spotted tuskaninny Toreil. He comes across as a bit of a gruff dude, but he's really just a big sweetheart. I'm working on some art of him for the BC at the moment. (:

Anyway. It's nice to meet you all!